A curated menagerie, this chamber. Thirty young men, each a predator or prey in the making. Sunlight, filtered through tall, arched windows, patterned the polished oak desks, illuminating dust motes dancing in the heavy air. Eighteen days had passed, precisely, since the incident. Eighteen days of a taut string, stretched near its snapping point, echoing the constant tension that had hummed beneath the Academy’s grand façade since Niccolò’s twelfth year. It was the rhythm of Volterra itself, this delicate, daily dance of survival. His left arm, still stiff from the bruising, throbbed. Niccolò flexed his fingers, a silent exercise. He tapped his ribs, the tender flesh beneath his tunic, then let out a shallow breath. Before him, the slumped backs of his peers. Green chalkboards, here replaced by vast panels of dark slate. Peach-colored napes became the finely-trimmed, sometimes powdered, hair of young noblemen and ambitious scholars. Maestro Bellini, perched at his elevated lectern, rustled a crumpled broadsheet. Its newsprint, coarse and smudged, told tales of distant wars and ducal decrees. The students, meanwhile, either bent diligently over their vellum, solving the geometric puzzles assigned, or, utterly defeated, leaned heavily against their desks, feigning sleep. “Rouse yourselves, gentlemen,” Bellini’s voice, a dry rasp, cut through the quiet. He turned a page, eyes still fixed on the paper. “We are not here to cultivate indolence.” It was the fifth hour of lectures. Niccolò had been wrestling with the fifteenth lemma of a complex cartographic projection. He scratched at his scalp, a restless habit, before setting his charcoal stylus beside his compass. His gaze drifted, finding the two empty benches that stood out most starkly. Lord Valerius’s usual perch, now bare. And beside it, the less ornate, yet still prominent, seat of young Signor Alessio. They had not appeared since the scandal. Nor, Niccolò suspected, would they tomorrow. Not unless Valerius’s capricious nature took another sudden turn, or some fresh revelation altered the already volatile currents between the two. Whatever truth lay beneath the rumors, Niccolò had no desire to uncover it. His eyes dropped back to the intricate problems, the web of lines and angles waiting to be conquered. The precise, elegant strokes of his own notation filled his vision. There had been a time, only months ago, when Niccolò had convinced himself he knew everything about Lord Valerius. A fool’s pride, that. He’d even privately believed he understood the young lord better than anyone in the Academy, better even than Conte Lorenzo, Valerius’s constant shadow. That quiet conviction had been a bitter salve, helping him endure the sight of Valerius and Lorenzo’s easy camaraderie. Deep down, a smug satisfaction resided: *I* know the true map of Valerius’s mind, he’d told himself. *I* hold the truer key. A hand rose to his chin. The cold metal of his signet ring pressed into his jaw. The thought itself, its smug, insidious nature, tasted like ash on his tongue. What would his peers, these sons of ancient houses, truly think if they glimpsed the calculations that churned beneath his placid surface? The answer was chillingly clear. He’d be cast out, pushed to the very bottom, his fragile standing dissolving into the common clay from which he’d sprung. A terrifying prospect, indeed. Such a grasping desire, unique to the ambitious, schemers of Volterra, had to remain hidden. Buried so deep that not even its object could sense it. So well concealed that Niccolò himself might forget it existed. Yet Lord Valerius had never hidden his desires. No one in Volterra was ignorant of his appetites, his cruel whims. Niccolò lifted his head slightly, a quick, almost imperceptible survey. Everyone remained hunched, seemingly engrossed. Between the rows of desks, near the central aisle, lay a scattered sheaf of parchment. Its meticulous script, perhaps a fragment of a treatise on optics, was smudged by a heel print. A discarded academic note, defaced and forlorn. Suddenly, as if sensing an unseen eye, Niccolò buried his head in his desk, mimicking the slumbering students. His heart thrummed a panicked rhythm. His own fate, if discovered, would be no different than that trampled parchment. Then, he turned his neck, a slow, deliberate movement. His gaze settled on the back row. Conte Lorenzo, slumped over his bench, one arm flung across his face. He seemed to have collapsed mid-thought, his features partially obscured. Yet, even in repose, a certain sorrowful delicacy clung to his profile, like a sculptor’s unfinished lament. Niccolò found himself staring at Lorenzo’s face. Had the already tall Conte grown further? The tunic that had fit him perfectly at the start of the academic year now left his wrists fully exposed. Around one of those strong, pale wrists, a heavy silver crucifix gleamed, catching a sliver of sunlight. A prominent, unmistakable symbol, deeply woven into the identity of his family, the devout Contes of the eastern hills. Before rumors reached him, Niccolò had assumed Lorenzo dwelled in the heart of the city, amidst the grandest palaces. Yet, despite his imposing aura, Lorenzo rarely seemed to embody the city’s opulent wealth. Sunken eyes, shadowed beneath heavy lids, gave him a perpetually haunted look. His faded irises, the color of storm clouds, and the thin sclera showing beneath his pupils, only heightened this gaunt, almost predatory sharpness. Lorenzo’s presence was one of grim intimidation, lacking the refined elegance Niccolò associated with inherited fortunes. Instead, his face bore the marks of profound deprivation, a melancholic heaviness that hinted at burdens far older than his years. Coupled with his broad, imposing physique—he was undoubtedly the tallest student at the Academy—it rendered him doubly formidable. Yet, for all his intimidating mien, Lorenzo possessed a strange, unsettling grace. His features, though sharp, held a classical symmetry. Without that, Niccolò suspected, people might have actively recoiled. Even so, Lorenzo’s expression, even in sleep, was unsettling, a flicker of nervous energy beneath the placid surface. But Lorenzo’s personality, Niccolò had observed, could not have been more different from his forbidding appearance. It wasn’t merely an indifference to the trappings of Volterran society; it was as if he actively erased events from his memory. He possessed an air of “detached ownership of nothing,” a quality that, paradoxically, only added to his mystique. Most notably, Lorenzo seemed unconcerned by coin. He never paid attention to how much others spent or demanded. If the mood struck him, he’d casually toss a gold florin to a nearby peer, as if the concept of currency held no meaning. Stories circulated of him lending sums and then forgetting the debt entirely. Some even recounted repaying him, only for Lorenzo to stare blankly, puzzled as to why they offered him money. Still, he didn’t indulge everyone. He’d grant a random request when amiable, but coldly refuse those truly desperate. Even with his closest companions, Lorenzo could be harsh. Niccolò once witnessed him, without a flicker of emotion, smash a rare porcelain bust commissioned by a lesser noble, simply because the boy had carelessly handled Lorenzo’s prized hunting falcon. The noble, Signor Valenti, had stood paralyzed, face blanching, as the fragments scattered. At the apex of the Academy’s social hierarchy, figures like Lorenzo and Valerius shared one thing: a complete disregard for others’ opinions. This indifference, in its own twisted way, was precisely what cemented their places at the pyramid’s summit. Why did they, with their own striving hands, surrender the keys to their world to these unpredictable predators? Niccolò found no answer, no matter how often he pondered it. And yet, Conte Lorenzo still called himself a devout man of God. The sort of young rogue who claimed to sleep with a worn missal beneath his pillow, yet adhered to a doctrine so flawed it would make the most lax priest blush. Catholicism, as Niccolò understood it, permitted earthly pleasures, yet Lorenzo abstained from drink and dalliance, from all the vices that stained Volterra’s streets. He did not steal from students, nor extort. But his pronouncements, his judgments, often felt far from any holy scripture. Could it be Valerius’s very nature, his open, scandalous desires, that so offended Lorenzo’s particular brand of piety? Niccolò licked his dry lips. A strange sense of relief washed over him, that he had not been fully caught in the scandal’s grasp. If he had, he would have ended up like that defaced parchment, cast aside, his reputation ruined. And yet, even in that moment, a persistent question whispered: if Valerius and he had remained close, as they were just a few months ago, would Valerius have protected him? The thought surfaced, unwelcome, dragging with it memories Niccolò desperately wanted to bury. He drew a deep breath, trying to suppress the nauseating lurch in his gut, as if the meager lunch he’d eaten threatened to rebel. No. Of course not. How laughable, that he had once entertained such an arrogant notion. To Valerius, Niccolò had been nothing. A convenient distraction, an intellect to briefly amuse, easily discarded. He knew this now, because of the cold amusement in Valerius’s eyes when he’d been beaten. His gaze had spoken everything. Niccolò had not wanted to know the truth, but it had stared him down, undeniable. Valerius sinned openly. Niccolò, too, was a sinner—but he hid it. And so, Valerius was, perhaps, punished by God, while Niccolò had been spared. A faint, bitter laugh escaped his lips, a sound so soft it was audible only to himself. “...So, as long as I don’t get caught, that’s all that matters.” Perhaps God had a personality much like Conte Lorenzo’s. His gaze shifted back to the desk near the Maestro’s podium, now empty. This was unusual, but today, Niccolò felt a pang of genuine pity for Signor Alessio. Poor soul, caught in the inferno of Valerius’s malevolence. You lacked the strength, the cunning, to resist that monstrous, seductive power. Fragile, helpless Alessio, so unlike the imposing Valerius. You should have run the moment I hinted at danger, fool. He knew he wasn’t a good man. Selfish, self-serving, and for that, he had been punished. Sometimes, a darker thought surfaced: *If you must entangle yourself with men, why not choose someone sly and calculating like me? At least then, life might be simpler. Why fall for someone so innocent, so earnest, only to suffer for it?* These days, Niccolò thought differently. No, of course no one could ever truly love someone like him. He knew himself too well to believe otherwise. There had been a time when he believed he could have it all. Arrogant, conceited Niccolò. Niccolò, who at eighteen, had thought he understood the intricate workings of the world. Wicked, vile Niccolò. Pitiful Niccolò, who had no one to comfort him, and so endured everything alone. That day, he couldn’t conquer the fifteenth lemma. He used his supposed illness as an excuse to lie slumped over his desk, thinking: *Well, at least I am not as ruined as Valerius or Alessio.* Whispers about Valerius and Alessio spread like wildfire through Volterra’s noble circles and its less savory alleys. Whether exaggerated or grounded in truth, no one could say for certain. There was no way to find out either. Valerius’s coterie had vanished from the Academy, as if ripped out by the roots. The few who remained were too preoccupied with forging new alliances to worry about old scandals, inadvertently fueling the rumors further. “Niccolò, pardon me, but who was closest to Valerius?” “Lord… No, Conte Lorenzo.” Niccolò overheard this exchange as he passed by the Maestro’s office on his way back to the lecture hall before dismissal. Maestro Bellini had asked, and a nervous junior scholar had answered. Pretending he hadn’t heard, Niccolò walked into the room. Bellini glanced between him and the empty seats, his fingers drumming a nervous staccato against the lectern. Then, as if abandoning some unspoken thought, he announced: “That concludes our session for today.” The moment dismissal was announced, Niccolò gathered his maps and styli. As he slung his satchel over his shoulder, Conte Lorenzo’s hand settled lightly on his back. A familiar gesture, yet unsettling in its context. “Moretti. Let us share a carafe of wine after school.” Niccolò turned, meeting Lorenzo’s faded, unreadable gaze. He knew. He had always watched Valerius and Lorenzo’s every interaction, knew that the person Lorenzo most frequently invited to such casual camaraderie was always Valerius. After a brief hesitation, Niccolò shook his head. “I cannot. I have a commission from the Guild of Cartographers.” “And after that?” “Study. Go, Conte, share your wine with one of your closer companions.” “They are… tiresome.” “Why so?” “Clinging to lesser men merely drags one down. Life, Moretti, is about maximizing one’s gains. Associating with dross only ruins one’s own standing.” A short, sharp laugh escaped Niccolò’s lips. The sheer absurdity of Lorenzo’s bluntness. Yet, a strange, undeniable echo in his own calculated heart. “So, Signor Valenti, the young Lord Alessandro—they are dross? Even your cousin, Filippo?” “If you put it so plainly, then yes, largely so. But you, Moretti, you are different.” The backhanded compliment left a sour taste on his tongue, a faint tremor in his gut. “What is that supposed to mean? You are a terrible man, Conte.” “No, I am not.” Lorenzo’s eyes, devoid of humor, held his. “You are so awful.” “Hmm. It is in the Holy Scriptures, is it not? ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness.’ I merely speak truths, Niccolò.” Honestly, Lorenzo was worse than he. At least Niccolò did not openly dismiss his few acquaintances as mere refuse. “That is why I am a good man,” Lorenzo added, a faint, almost imperceptible smirk playing on his lips. “...Naturally.” “Since I am such a good man, may I accompany you to your lodgings?” Lorenzo blinked twice, his gaze unwavering. Niccolò looked at his face for a moment, weighing the sudden, unexpected request. Then, a slow nod. “Certainly, Conte. As you wish.” Such an alliance, however distasteful, might prove a bulwark against the swirling currents of the Academy. To secure one’s place in the hierarchy, one sometimes had to embrace the very wolves one sought to avoid. There was no other way.

The Weight of Gold and Guilt